Defying risks of a violent crackdown and severe punishment by Chinese authorities, Tibetans in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) County of Sichuan Province have openly and massively paid obeisance to their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on the first day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, which fell on Feb 19, reported voatibetanenglish.com Feb 20. Tibetans traditionally mark their age by Losar and this date therefore ushered in the momentous occasion of the Dalai Lama reaching 80 years old.

The report said more than 3,000 people visited the Sergon Thubten Chokle Namgyal Ling, which belongs to the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism, and offered ceremonial scarves to a life-sized portrait of the Dalai Lama while Lungta prayer flags imprinted on pieces of paper filled the sky above.

China’s forced patriotism and legal education campaigns, being carried out especially at monasteries, require Tibetans to disown and condemn the Dalai Lama, with those who refuse to do so being severely beaten and legally punished. [Source]

At monasteries in Sichuan’s Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) and Golog (Guoluo)Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures, participants placed life-size photos of the Dalai Lama on thrones in the monasteries’ courtyards, made offerings, and recited prayers for his long life, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“Those taking part included both monks from the monasteries and laypersons from the local Tibetan community,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Amid impressive ceremonial a six-year-old Chinese peasant was today enthroned in Lhasa as Dalai Lama – ruler of Tibet’s 3,000,000 people. Riding in a golden palanquin, he was escorted by a mile-long procession from his palace on the outskirts of the city to the Potala Palace, where the ceremony was held.

An hour before dawn, at the time fixed by astrologers, the fourteenth incarnation of the Dalai Lama entered the main assembly hall of the palace to the sound of trumpets and mounted the golden throne. The ceremonies will last for several days. [Source]

The author, Lu Jiamin, was jailed for more than a year for his role in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Worried his subsequent writings would be banned, he wrote the novel under a pen name, Jiang Rong. The French director, Jean-Jacques Annaud, had been banned from China for making “Seven Years in Tibet”, a film released in 1997 that depicts the Chinese army invading Tibet and portrays the Dalai Lama sympathetically. But China Film Group, a state-owned giant, and others made Mr Annaud a rare foreign director of a Chinese feature film, with a budget of more than $40m.

[…] In an open letter circulated in Chinese online (a liberal but generally fair translation, he says), Mr Annaud declared he had “never supported Tibet’s independence” and had no “personal relationship” with the Dalai Lama.

There were some domestic critics online who did not care for the novel or its author, and who would have liked to derail the film project. Mr Annaud’s self-criticism helped protect against that, and the Chinese system in turn protected him. The new natural order of things, perhaps. [Source]

Annaud recently told Reuters that censors had given him carte blanche on the project, but acknowledged that this freedom “may have been an exception.” Even without their guidance, the film reportedly plays down the novel’s political subtexts to focus on its environmental theme.

“I think this shows the Americans are learning gradually and successfully how to play the Chinese back in their own manner of doing politics,” said Robbie Barnett, an expert on modern Tibet at Columbia University.

In particular, Mr. Barnett said, Mr. Obama’s non-meeting with the Dalai Lama demonstrated a grasp of the symbolic politics favored by Beijing but usually dismissed out of hand by Western governments. By conceding on not actually having a discussion with the religious leader, the White House appears to be respecting Beijing’s demands, he explained.

“Meanwhile, you can’t get away from the television image of the president with his hands clapped together bowing his head toward the Dalai Lama,” he said. “That’s a very strong message. It doesn’t look like a climb-down.” [Source]

“The Dalai Lama has over a long period of time used the banner of religion to engage in separatist, anti-Chinese activities as a political exile,” Hong Lei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said during a regular news conference on Friday. “We oppose any foreign country allowing the Dalai Lama to visit, and oppose any country using the issue of Tibet to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”

In a commentary Friday, the state-run news agency Xinhua was more colorful. “This action by the U.S. to ‘drive a nail’ into the hearts of the Chinese people is harmful to the political trust between the two countries, and it is harmful to the premise and foundation of both sides building a new relationship,” it said.

[…] Although China’s forceful and florid protests are largely aimed at showing its resolve to a domestic audience, Mr. Barnett said its public statements were unbecoming of a world power. “It makes them look tetchy and unreasonable,” he said, “and in the end, the Chinese allowed the Americans to walk them into a situation that doesn’t look good.” [Source]

The Dalai Lama is not a head of state and he formally gave up his political role in Tibet’s exile government three years ago. But his appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast, where Obama will deliver an address about religious freedom, has already drawn sharp objections from Chinese leaders who oppose meetings between the religious leader and politicians.

[…] The machinations surrounding the Dalai Lama’s visit illustrate his unique standing as a global icon. Perhaps no other person who is not a head of state forces the White House into such contortions — simultaneously embracing him as a symbol of democratic values and keeping him at a remove because of his status as a political lightning rod.

By comparison, Obama literally kissed Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democracy icon, during a visit to that country in November.

“The president’s desire, and probably need, to meet with the Dalai Lama is a function of U.S. domestic politics and a desire in the White House to be seen standing up for human rights,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But they do understand we have to be careful with our relations with China.” [Source]

No-one knows whether or not Beijing will or will not move towards serious talks with the Dalai Lama in the future, or if western support will make this outcome more likely or less.

Could this meeting have any repercussions for Tibetans?

There are some observers who feel that the involvement of the Western powers in the Tibetan issue exacerbates tensions in Tibet and leads to more repressive and defensive polices by China. Others argue that China will not make concessions to Tibetans without foreign pressure. But that pressure is seen as provocative by many people in China, probably the vast majority. So this argument is unresolved.

There is also a thesis put forward by some Western scholars, and by some Tibetans too, that symbolic gestures of foreign support are counter-productive or even damaging. News of the event this week will be relayed into Tibet by Tibetan-language and Chinese-language radio stations in the US and Europe, so people will know about it and many will quietly celebrate it.

But, according to this argument, this risks leading some Tibetans in Tibet to believe that Western support is significant and practical – although it is clear to outsiders that it is only moral or symbolic. […]

How is the meeting likely to affect Sino-US ties?

It will lead to some tensions, but these are likely to be very minor and short-lived – these two powers have far too much at stake to risk serious damage accruing from this issue. […] [Source]

[… W]hile there have been a number of violent terrorist attacks in Xinjiang within the last year, Reuters reports that “there is little indication that any such attacks have occurred in Tibet.” However, China’s draft anti-terrorism law features an extraordinarily broad definition of terrorism, one that includes not only violent attacks but also “thought [or] speech” that aims to “subvert state power” or “split the state.”

That new definition has implication for Tibet. China has repeatedly denounced the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader, as a “splittist,” arguing that his talk of a “middle way” and increased Tibetan autonomy is merely code for outright Tibetan independence. Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on officials within Tibet that “follow the 14th Dalai Lama to split the country, break ethnic unity, participate in illegal organizations and activities, and spread reactionary opinions.”

Beijing also accuses the Dalai Lama of encouraging violence (including self-immolations by Tibetan monks) even while publicly embracing a message of non-violence. Last summer, Chinese media directly accused the Dalai Lama of inciting “hatred, terror, and extremist action” through the Kalachakra ceremony. [Source]

[…] The closest Sangay said he came to meeting a head of state was an encounter around 2007 at Harvard with Ma Ying-jeou, who later became the president of Taiwan — an island claimed by China, that only 21 nations still recognize as an independent country. Sangay said he has not met any heads of state: “We don’t even try; it’s too sensitive for them.”

[…] Sangay says that his policy on dealing with Beijing is the same as that of the previous Tibetan governments-in-exile. Rather than seeking independence, or making do with the status quo, the Dalai Lama in 1974 conceived of a policy known as the Middle Way Approach. It calls for “genuine autonomy” for Tibetans living in China, and allows Beijing to maintain “the security and territorial integrity of the motherland.” Samphel of the Tibet Policy Institute, who thinks Sangay is “doing a wonderful job,” admits that there’s little the prime minister can do. “Whether China thinks it’s within its interests to engage with him or not, that’s for China to decide. But at the moment, it seems that they don’t want anything to do with him.” [Source]

Inside Xiao’s luxury Beijing apartment, in pride of place atop his own private Buddhist shrine, sits a portrait of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, a man long reviled by the Chinese government as a dangerous separatist.

[…] Xiao Wunan’s exact role when he was in government is unclear – “just call me a former high official”, he says.

[…] [Tibet scholar Robert] Barnett advises against reading too much into Xiao Wunan’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, but says it is nonetheless symbolic.

“I can detect no politically significant activities in that meeting,” he says, “but it is significant as a symbolic indicator, a glimpse of a shift that might be under consideration in, or near, the policy-making heights of the Chinese system.” […] [Source]

The Dalai Lama will attend this year’s National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 5, marking the first time that the Tibetan leader will appear in public at an event that President Obama is expected to also attend, according to a press aide for Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, who is co-chair of the event.

“The Dalai Lama will be at the breakfast, but he does not have a speaking role,” Casey aide Alex Miller tells TIME in an email. The White House did not immediately confirm the report.

[…] The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual, historically Christian event at the Washington Hilton for hundreds of mostly evangelical and other faith leaders. The President of the United States and First Lady have long attended, and the President traditionally speaks. [Source]

Reuters quotes a White House spokesperson: “The President will see many religious leaders at the event, but we don’t have any specific meeting with the Dalai Lama to announce.”

The officials in the Tibet Autonomous Region, which includes the capital, Lhasa, provided intelligence to the “Dalai Lama clique” and took part in activities that “would harm national security,” according to an article by China News Service, an official agency, that was published by several major news outlets, including Global Times, a populist newspaper, and the website of People’s Daily, the main party newspaper. The report cited officials with the party Commission for Discipline Inspection of Tibet.

The report said there had been six cases of party members and civil servants violating party discipline and 45 officials who had abandoned their posts or neglected their duties. Those 45 officials were being “severely punished,” the report said, citing Wang Gang, a party discipline official.

It was unclear from the report to what degree the cases of these officials overlapped with the 15 cases involving separatist activities. […] [Source]

“The usual protocol of the secretary of state is not to receive heads of state and high ranking personalities when they are in Rome for an international meeting,” he told journalists as he flew back from Manila.

[…] “Some newspapers said that I did not meet with him out of fear of China. This is not true. He asked for an audience some time ago. A date has been fixed. But not for the moment. We are in contact,” he added.

Asked about efforts to forge closer ties between the Vatican and China, he said: “The Chinese are polite, and we are also polite. We are doing things step by step.”

The Chinese “know that I am ready to go there [China] or to receive [Chinese officials] at the Vatican,” he said. [Source]

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after Chinese troops crushed an attempted uprising in Tibet.

Beijing views the Nobel Peace Prize-winner as a “splittist”, though he now advocates a “middle way” with China, seeking autonomy but not independence for Tibet.

In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, during a visit to Rome for the 14th World Summit of Nobel Laureates, the 79-year-old spiritual leader conceded that he may not have a successor.

Whether another Dalai Lama came after him would depend on the circumstances after his death and was “up to the Tibetan people”, he said.

[…] The move was seen by many as a way the Dalai Lama could ensure the Tibetan community would have an elected leader in place outside the control of China.

China has said repeatedly that it will choose the next Dalai Lama.

“The Dalai Lama institution will cease one day. These man-made institutions will cease,” the Dalai Lama told the BBC. [Source]

The British government did not confront China over the situation in Hong Kong because it needs Chinese money, the Dalai Lama has said.

“My English friend said they say the British government’s pocket is more or less empty, so it is very important to them to have close links with China for money reasons. That is also realistic,” said the Dalai Lama, in an interview with Newsnight in Rome.

[…] “China, economically, very much wants to join the mainstream of the world economy. They are most welcome,” the Dalai Lama said.

[…] “At the same time the free world has a moral responsibility to bring China into the mainstream of democracy. China’s own people also want that … so therefore I think the whole world’s future has to be freedom and democracy. I think the free world has certain responsibilities to stand firm over democracy and the rule of law and the freedom of the press.” [Source]

In the interview aired on Wednesday, the exiled spiritual leader suggested hardliners in Beijing were holding President Xi Jinping back from granting genuine autonomy to the Himalayan region.

The Dalai Lama said he had been encouraged by Xi’s recent comments on the importance of Buddhism in Chinese culture. “This is something very unusual,” he said. “A communist, usually, we consider atheist.”

Asked if the remarks led him to believe Xi was ready to discuss calls for genuine autonomy, the spiritual leader said he thought there were “some indications”.

“But at the same time, among the establishment, there is a lot of hardliner thinking still there. So he himself sometimes finds it’s a difficult situation,” the Dalai Lama said. [Source]

What happened in Rome is wholly different. Unlike the US, Britain, Norway, and South Africa, among other countries, the Vatican has no economic ties with Beijing, nor does it hold security discussions with the Chinese. It is also usual for the Pope to meet the leaders of other world faiths on purely religious grounds.

What is plain is Francis’s anguish over the fate of the estimated twelve million Chinese who are Catholic and the more than three thousand Catholic priests active in China. About half of China’s Catholics are connected to one of the churches under the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), which means their bishops are appointed by employees of CPCA, which was created by the Religious Affairs Bureau of the People’s Republic; the other half are unofficial “House Christians,” who recognize the pope as their leader. Along with China’s Protestants, both groups have at best uneasy relations with the Communist leadership. Earlier this year, Catholic and Protestant churches in some regions of China were designated as “illegal structures” and demolished; in other cases in recent months, Christian religious symbols, such as crosses, have sometimes been forcibly removed.

Evidently, the Vatican understood what could happen if the Pope met “the criminal, splittist Dalai,” as he is routinely condemned by Beijing. There is always the possibility of detentions of prominent Catholics and their priests, and more punishments for Tibetan Buddhists, well-tried forms of Communist persecution. There also could be more at stake now that Beijing has signaled that it might consider improving relations with Rome. The signal seems arcane but it was understood in the Vatican. During the Pope’s visit to South Korea, for the first time a plane carrying a pope was permitted to fly through Chinese air space. In response, as he passed over China, the Pope sent a message to President Xi Jinping: “I extend the best wishes to Your Excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke the divine blessings of peace and well-being upon the nation.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/12/jonathan-mirsky-pope-francis-china-problem/feed/0Pope Declines “Inconvenient” Dalai Lama Meetinghttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/12/pope-declines-inconvenient-dalai-lama-meeting/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/12/pope-declines-inconvenient-dalai-lama-meeting/#commentsThu, 11 Dec 2014 23:07:20 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=179868The Telegraph’s Nick Squires reports that Pope Francis has declined to meet with the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Laureates in Rome this weekend, apparently to avoid angering Beijing. According to the Dalai Lama himself, the Vatican decided against the meeting “because it could cause inconveniences.”

The decision reflects an acute diplomatic dilemma for the Pope, at a time when the Vatican is attempting to improve its relations with Beijing and wants to avoid upsetting the Chinese authorities for fear of provoking trouble for the country’s Catholic community.

The snub is hardly in keeping with the Argentinean pontiff’s enthusiasm for dialogue with other religions, an agenda he has pursued in recent months on trips to Turkey, Albania and the Holy Land.

[…] The event was originally due to be held in South Africa but had to be moved after the Pretoria government refused to issue the Tibetan spiritual leader a visa, fearing repercussions from Beijing. [Source]

The Nordic country is doing business with China’s Cnooc Ltd. (883) as it tries to find oil off Iceland’s shores. The Chinese company is also looking into exploring Norway’s eastern Barents Sea, an area where licenses will be awarded in 2016.

“China is one of the countries that like to participate in the north in cooperation with the countries that have sovereignty in the high north,” Norway Oil and Energy Minister Tord Lien said in an interview yesterday in Iceland. “International cooperation on developing energy resources and other resources is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing.”

[…] Norway’s Conservative-led government, which won power last year, has made improved relations with China its top foreign-policy goal. The administration is doing what it can to avoid angering China further, including snubbing the Dalai Lama — another Nobel Peace prize laureate — during his visit to Norway in May. [Source]

Norwegian salmon has been the “fulcrum” of Chinese punitive measures since 2010, according to [Bjornar Sverdrup-Thygeson of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs], who believes the latest move may have been motivated by the leak of a document from secret bilateral negotiations between China and the former Norwegian administration.

The document leaked by business magazine Dagens Naerringsliv on September 2 advised former prime minister Jens Stoltenberg to issue a formal apology and promise no future Chinese dissidents earn the prize – suggestions he dismissed on the grounds that the Nobel committee is an entity separate from the government.

[…] “Our hands are tied,” the director of the Centre for International and Strategic Analysis, Helge Luras, said. “For Norwegian politicians it would be suicide to come up with an apology – many Norwegians still believe [Liu] fights a just cause,” he added. [Source]

In a front-page article in the Tibet Daily, Tibet’s party chief Chen Quanguo said China would stamp out any separatist inclinations.

“As for cadres who harbor fantasies about the 14th Dalai Group, follow the Dalai Group, participate in supporting separatist infiltration sabotage activities, (they will be) strictly and severely punished according to the law and party disciplinary measures,” Chen was quoted as saying.

Chen’s denunciation of the Dalai Lama signals a hardening stance against the Nobel Peace Prize winner whom they label a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who seeks to use violent methods to establish an independent Tibet. [Source]

“Our position on the Dalai Lama is consistent and clear,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular briefing. “What he needs to do is not make a so-called return to Tibet but give up his position and conduct on splitting China,” he added. “This will do good for him.”

Now aged 79, the Dalai Lama has been exiled from Tibet since he fled a failed uprising in 1959. Beijing has since condemned him as a “dangerous separatist”, yet the Nobel laureate spiritual leader – who retired from politics in 2011 – maintains that he wants only greater autonomy for Tibetan areas in China.

[…] The Dalai Lama has long expressed a desire to visit Wutai Shan, a mountain in northern China considered sacred by the country’s Buddhists. The comments were the strongest suggestion yet of a thaw in relations between Beijing and the exile. Last month, an anonymous blog post appeared briefly on a Chinese-run website describing the Dalai Lama’s return in positive terms, before it was taken down.

But the Chinese foreign ministry’s comments – while neither confirming nor denying that contacts have taken place – indicate that publicly Beijing is maintaining its hardline stance towards the monk. [Source]

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, indicated on Thursday that he had had discussions with Beijing about making a pilgrimage to Wutai Shan mountain in northern China’s Shanxi Province, in what would be his first visit to the region since he went into exile in 1959.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse in Dharamsala, the Indian town that is now headquarters to Tibet’s exile government, the Dalai Lama said, “It’s not finalized, not yet, but the idea is there.” He said the conversations were taking place “not formally or seriously, but informally.” Wutai Shan is home to many monasteries, and is particularly sacred to Tibetan Buddhists.

“This is my desire, and some of my friends, they are also showing their genuine interest or concern,” he said. “Recently, some Chinese officials, for example the deputy party secretary in the autonomous region of Tibet, he also mentioned the possibility of my visit as a pilgrimage to that sacred place.”

If Chinese authorities allow the Dalai Lama to visit Chinese territory, it will be seen as an important step toward serious talks between the two sides about resolving their long-running conflict, and toward potentially making it possible for the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet, said Robert Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University. [Source]

Despite the recent tensions, speculation about improved relations between China and the Dalai Lama have been fueled by remarks from a Chinese Communist Party deputy secretary who said discussions on the spiritual leader’s return to his homeland were underway. In September, a popular Chinese Web site briefly displayed an article that said that the Dalai Lama might return for a visit to a Buddhist shrine and to meet party leaders.

The Dalai Lama also contributed to the media hubbub, praising Xi as more “realistic” and “open-minded” than his predecessors while Xi was on a high-profile trip to India in September. On Thursday, the Dalai Lama again praised Xi for having “courageously tackled” the problem of government corruption. But he voiced concern over China’s imprisonment of dissidents.

[…] Some Tibet experts have scoffed at reports about an improvement in the relationship between China and the Dalai Lama, noting that China’s strategy has long been to wait until the Dalai Lama dies to resolve the Tibet issue — as well as that of the holy man’s successor. The Dalai Lama has said that his successor should be chosen by the Tibetan people, a desire which, if not honored by the Chinese government, could result in widespread unrest. [Source]

In December, the government announced plans to introduce a new law that would stress protection of the Tibetan language – a persistent source of concern among Tibetans who worry that Chinese immigration and educational requirements are eroding traditional culture. Scholars have also noted that Beijing has subtly toned down its rhetoric on the Dalai Lama, referring to him more often by his full title instead of the pejorative truncation “the Dalai.”

On Thursday, an anonymous Chinese blog post describing the Dalai Lama’s return as a “win-win” added to the intrigue. Illustrated with a photo of a serene looking Dalai Lama bowing with his hands pressed together, it argued that allowing the spiritual leader to return home would reduce the ability of Western countries to assault China over the Tibet question while winning the confidence of Tibetans in and outside of the country and undermining extremists.

[…] The post, which was taken down on Thursday night, was based on rumors of talks between the Dalai Lama and Beijing that the Dalai Lama’s camp says are untrue. Columbia University Tibet specialist Robert Barnett said he nevertheless saw it as significant, noting that it was left online long enough to rack up more than 50,000 views.

[…] Mr. Barnett said it was difficult to say what the appearance and popularity of the blog post meant. But he also said he thought it was probably only a matter of time before Beijing made “at least surface level” gestures aimed at re-starting talks with the Dalai Lama on a possible return, in part because of a surge in anti-government violence tied to the mostly Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang. [Source]